It appears that the pro-landlord Council Members supporting this "rent mediation" law are not trying to help current renters at all. They may be trying to get rid of current renters - making way for higher-paying occupants.

You know, if you have rent control it's not permitted to apply to newly constructed buildings. What a shame. That's what makes this a problem here. These speculators just love to tear down the existing buildings anyway and replace them with something where there are more units per acre, but the rent per unit is DOUBLED.

The MV City Council resides in the back pocket of developers.

Every time you ask the question about traffic, one MUST ask :

Why did our City Council approve such massive building projects when they knew traffic would be a mess.

Lets let those who OWN the blame be blamed outright.
Thanks City Council, your pro growth policies and heavily funded by developers campaigns have really messed things up. Don't be proud, be remorseful...you have overbuilt and over stressed the infrastructure. You have been bought and you sold out MV. It sucks.

Perhaps Mountain View should look to Palo Alto for creative ways to help those "struggling" families as noted in this recent article:


Web Link

"To help those who aren't among the wealthy elite buy homes, the City of Palo Alto is considering building and subsidizing new housing for families making $150,000 to $250,000, CBS SF reports."


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Evidently if you're a family that earns LESS than $150K annually...well, you're just hosed, and if you're a family that earns $251K annually, well clearly you can afford to live in Palo Alto.

In my opinion the City Council is responding correctly to free market conditions. Rental prices are determined by what people are willing to pay for their housing. If a person can't compete for this housing, they can't live here. Simple as that.

An unintended consequence may be that low income people will be unable to live here and may have long commutes from lower rental price areas if they continue to seek work in Mountain View. That is how markets work.

Mr Tee is exactly correct in his comments. The goal of council is to provide public services like roads , utilities, etc. No where does it say the council should favor renters and not landlords. The editorial suggests that without help some renters may be overburdened. How do they know? I would prefer private individuals figure out what's best for them and let them decide where to live. Bureaucrats will only make matters worse.

Some landlirds are surely tickled pink that 4 councilmembers landlord groups endorsed as candidates (Kasperzak, Clark, McAlister and Showalter) have answered the call to save middle-to-lower tenants by approving a "mediation" ordinance that does not stop landlords from increasing rents or simply evicting tenants and re-renting at the new "market" rate establish by the demand for housing these same Councilmembers have helped create. A cruel hoax.